Icelandic fin whaling season comes to an end

2018's slaughter of fin whales comes to a close after the first fin whaling season for two years

Fin whales around Iceland will be a little safer today as the whaling season comes to a close, but the species still faces an uncertain future in the cold waters of the north.

According to conservation charity Hard to Port, Hvalur hf have killed 146 fin whales in 2018, as well as slaughtering two rare hybrids of fin whales and blue whales, as a part of the first whaling season since 2016. The numbers also included at least a dozen pregnant females.

The barbaric and brutal practice, which has little support either domestically in Iceland or in the wider international community, flies in the face of the global moratorium on commercial whaling estabished by the International Whaling Commission (IWC).

However, the long term future of whaling in the country is still unclear, as the current block of quotas expires in 2018. Pressure has been increasing on Icelandic Prime Minister Katrín Jakobsdóttir, with polling suggesting that support from whaling has dropped significantly in recent years.

Recently. a petition was delivered to her by Mark Avery after organisations at Birdfair 2018, including ORCA, encouraged hundreds of people to voice their opposition to whaling in Iceland.

ORCA are fully opposed to whaling and hope that this brutal and cruel practice can be consigned to the past where it belongs. We have been monitoring fin whales in Europe for decades and are hopeful that one these majestic animals will be able to live without fear of being hunted.